Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Composite Score: 85.47
Starring: Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Larry Gates, King Donovan, Carolyn Jones, Jean Willes, Ralph Dumke, Virginia Christine, Tom Fadden, and Kenneth Patterson
Director: Don Siegel
Writer: Daniel Mainwaring
Genres: Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
MPAA Rating: Approved
Box Office: $2,522 worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is the 1956 film adaptation of Jack Finney’s novel The Body Snatchers about an extraterrestrial invasion that is discovered by a doctor in a small town in California. The film stars Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter as its leading couple – Dr. Miles Bennell and Becky Driscoll – who are thrust into this sci-fi horror situation. It follows the couple as they discover that alien plants have been growing bodies and replacing their fellow townsfolk with exact replicas that simply lack emotions. Their investigation into the events and eventual flight from town make up the majority of the film’s run time. The film is considered a classic of sci-fi horror and is continually praised for its allegorical critique of McCarthyism and general societal conformity and its celebration of emotion and individuality that continue to be important to this day.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
As a product of 1950s American cinema, Body Snatchers might be a bit more optimistic than audience might expect of such a film, using a framing device to give the film a happier ending than it could have had. Honestly, the ending of the film as it stands might or might not work for you. On the one hand, had it ended with more ambiguity and pessimism, I think the film would have had a stronger impact. At the same time, I think that my frustration at the classic trope of “guy who knows something is wrong but can’t get anyone else to believe him” would have boiled over and I might not have come away with as positive a feeling about this film as I do. (This mostly is just a me thing, though, because I’m pretty sure doppelganger stories might be my least favorite of the horror subgenres, and I fully blame Supernatural for that, so you’d probably be fine either way.) As it stands, it’s easy to see how the film’s ending might be too “crowd-pleasing” to feel as impactful and realistic – alien plant people notwithstanding – as the rest of the film did.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a classic for a reason – that reason being its engaging and innovative story. It feels like an extended episode of The Twilight Zone – but one of the good episodes and not the weird ones that don’t really go anywhere and feel really dated – in its establishment of mystery and distrust within the minds of its protagonists and the audience. It then expounds on that mystery and plays with that mistrust until the audience and characters reach a point where they don’t know that they can fully trust anyone – the characters because they’ve possibly all been replaced by alien doppelgangers and the audience because there’s so much realism involved that you almost start to think that maybe the narrator (Dr. Bennell) really is just crazy. It’s a brilliant execution of this now-familiar story of paranoia and distrust that manages to also critique people who incite such paranoia in others through alienating practices (like McCarthy in the 1950s). The topical nature of its themes make it that much more enjoyable.
The speed and execution of the story in Invasion of the Body Snatchers make it one for the ages, delivering a high intensity thriller that’ll leave you questioning just enough to come away satisfied, marking it as one of the greats. Its optimism in the midst of such heavy subject matter might not be what every audience needs to hear, but the sheer entertainment value of the story go a long way in making up for what might be a disappointing end. You can currently stream this with ads on the Roku Channel or rent it on most other streaming services if you’d like to give it a go.
